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Just Cause 3 is the third installment in Square Enix’s open world, 3rd person shooter. Well known for it’s expansive open world and chaotic destruction, Just Cause has always been a fun sandbox to mess around in. Just Cause 3 shows us how much fun we can have with the Just Cause formula that has changed and evolved over the years, even if it causes technological hiccups. If you’re looking for a great open world game to explore and destroy, Just Cause 3 has you covered.

Wing-suits, Grapple Hooks and Guns

Just Cause 3 plays and feels just like it’s predecessor, but with many key changes that make it unique and incredibly fun. The biggest and best addition to Just Cause 3 is the new wing-suit. The wing-suit allows for our protagonist Rico Rodriguez to explore Medici fluently and quickly. While at first it’s hard to get a grasp on how to properly use it, the wing-suit becomes a very useful tool both in combat and exploration. Key icons from the Just Cause franchise such as the parachute and grapple hook return in Just Cause 3 and they’re better than ever. They have been improved on and changed to be the best they’ve been in the series. While you aren’t exploring the vast, expansive island of Medici you’ll be liberating it. Liberating military bases and outposts involve destroying Chaos Objects such as gas tanks, generators, satellite dishes and more. The only problem is that there are so many outposts to liberate, it starts to get repetitive after a while. Liberating these various outposts unlock Challenge Modes. These Challenge Modes include elements from the game like gliding with the wing-suit, destroying Chaos Objects and more to unlock Gear Mods. These Gear Mods serve as upgrades for Rico’s guns, grapple-hook, wing-suit and vehicles. They’re completely optional and take quite a bit of time to unlock all of them. Just Cause 3’s gun-play is pretty substandard for a 3rd person shooter. There are a decent amount of guns and the special weapons in particular are fun to play around with. Destruction is as good as it’s ever been in the series and making use of the dual tethers to tear down Chaos Objects and sling shot people into oblivion is some of the most fun iv’e had in an open world for a long time.

Outposts range from small police stations to fully fledged military bases.

Liberate Medici At Any Cost

Just Cause 3’s story-line follows Rico Rodriguez leading an army of rebels against Sebastiano Di Ravello’s Dictatorship over Medici. Di Ravello is a power crazed leader, trying to get a mineral called Bavarium off the island of Medici. It has insane amounts of power but is however only found on Medici. The rebels look to overthrow Di Ravello and restore Medici to it’s former glory. The supporting characters like Dimah and Mario are interesting in their own rights and fight for the rebels for their own reasons. Dimah looks to fix the mistakes she made in the past and is a very self righteous character. Mario acts just like a brother to Rico, he’s a funny, well written character with a very silly tone about him. Rico himself is still the classic spy, secret agent personality and is better for it. Rico is an awesome character and I hope to see him return in any future Just Cause games. The story overall is by no means bad, it’s just not great. An average play through will take you around 15 hours to finish the main story missions.

Finding tapes hidden in the open world tell us more about Di Ravello and his past which are actually quite interesting.

The Mediterranean Island of Medici

The setting of Medici looks amazing. From the snowy mountain peaks, green forests and beautiful beaches, Just Cause 3 looks beautiful no matter where you are in the game. A beautiful 1080p means the game is always a treat to look at. However the same can’t be said for the inconsistent 30 frames per second. While it does an okay job most of the time at maintaining 30 fps, it can tank quite heavily during combat heavy sequences and explosive sequences in particular. It can get quite annoying, but it never makes the game unplayable and it could be a lot worse. Load times are also a pain to deal with.

You can get a very good view of Medici while free-falling or wing-suiting.

Verdict: Good

If you’re a fan of Just Cause or just looking for an open world sandbox to mess around in, Just Cause 3 is perfect for that. It offers a vast, beautiful world with plenty of fun to be had. However, if you’re looking for a more story oriented or multiplayer focused game, Just Cause 3 probably isn’t for you.

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One thought on “Just Cause 3”

I do understand most of your points but the wing suit as a positive is odd as there are many other positives that could of been in its place like the Grapple Hook or gun play as they are influential in my opinion.